Karl Korsch - Böcker

There is growing interest in Europe and the United States in the work of the major German social-political philosopher Karl Korsch. Korsch participated in the turbulent struggles in Weimar Germany and while in exile continually reflected on history and politics. His work affords one of the most important interpretations of the role of Marxism in twentieth-century revolutionary movements, while developing an ongoing critical interrogation of Marxism. His thought provides an illuminating perspective on the process of revolution and counterrevolution in recent history. Karl Korsch: Revolutionary Theory is the first English anthology of his most important writings. This collection presents Korsch's essays on a wide range of subjects, including Marxism and socialization, Lenin and the Soviet Union, the crisis of Marxism, models of revolutionary practice, fascism and counterrevolution, and Korsch's final evaluation of Marxism. Much of this work is translated into English for the first time, and many unknown essays first published in radical journals which are no longer available appear here. The volume includes Korsch's major essays written during the 1920s and 1930s as well as some of his later work. Douglas Kellner's detailed introduction, "Korsch's Revolutionary Marxism," contains the first comprehensive critical interpretation of Korsch's work to appear in English. It provides a historical-theoretical reconstruction of Korsch's life and thought and roots his political theory in the sociopolitical context in which it evolved. The introduction has been described by Korsch scholars as a "first-class piece of exposition and interpretation" and a "serious, first-rate contribution likely to preempt the field in the English language." The editor's introduction along with the representative selection of essays provide firm grounding in the ideas and historical significance of Karl Korsch.

These three essays by the independent German Marxist Karl Korsch offer expositions, often in polemical form, of basic Marxist ideas. Since they cover both sociology and economics, they are excellent guides for the student on the most introductory, though not the most elementary, level. The first essay, "Leading Principles of Marxism," takes up Marxism on the plane of sociology and deals with the relation of Marxism to Comte and positivism, and to bourgeois sociology in general. The second, his introduction to the 1932 German edition of Capital, consists of an assessment of the work in human thought and an important reader's guide to Volume I. The third, "Why I Am a Marxist," is a polemic against various distortions in Marxism and an affirmation of the revolutionary, as against the academic, character of Marxism.

The re-publication of Karl Korsch's Karl Marx (originally published in 1938) makes available to a new generation of readers the most concise account of Karl Marx's thought by one of the major figures of 20th-century Western Marxism. It brings Marx's work to life for non-specialist readers. As Michael Buckmiller writes in his new introduction to the work, Korsch wanted his book to serve as a passport into the non-dogmatic sections of the American labour movement. The result is a bracing, concise and accessible overview of the entirety of Marx's thought, and a pungent history of Marxism.

In Marxism and Philosophy Korsch argues for a reexamination of the relationship between Marxist theory and bourgeois philosophy, and insists on the centrality of the Hegelian dialectic and a commitment to revolutionary praxis. Although widely attacked in its time, Marxism and Philosophy has attained a place among the most important works of twentieth-century Marxist theory, and continues to merit critical reappraisal from scholars and activists today.